Independent presidential candidate Cornel West will remain on Maine’s November ballot.
That comes after Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows denied two petitions to kick the activist and former Harvard and Princeton professor off the ballot.
Those challenges from Gray Town Councilor Anne Gass and Lewiston business owner Sandra Marquis, who jointly challenged West’s place on the ballot, and Portland sommelier Nathan Berger alleged that many signatures had been fraudulently obtained and that other irregularities should invalidate other signatures.
The secretary of state’s office held a hearing on Aug. 14.
In her decision dated Tuesday, Bellows determined that some signatures had been fraudulently obtained but not enough to kick West off the ballot.
“[T]he bad actions of one should not impugn the valid First Amendment rights of the many,” Bellows wrote.
In total, Bellows tossed 258 signatures, leaving West with 4,720 valid signatures, enough to keep him on the ballot.
Beyond the alleged fraud, Gass and Marquis said other errors in the certification process should invalidate more signatures. But Bellows rejected those arguments, saying local and state officials acted properly in certifying the signatures regardless if the voter “signed with a nickname or dated the petition with the day and month only.”
“While other states across the country may direct election officials to exclude voters from duly participating in our elections processes on the basis of scrivener’s quibbles, Maine does not,” Bellows wrote, adding that Maine’s election laws “encourage full and fair voter participation.”
West has been running on a platform to end wars, disband NATO, forgive all student debt, expand Social Security and invest in clean energy.
He will be joined by his running mate, Melina Abdullah, a professor of Pan-African studies at California State University in Los Angeles. She is a graduate of Howard University and the University of Southern California, according to their campaign website.
The placement of another independent candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., on Maine’s ballot was challenged as well. But the challenger, James Stretch, withdrew that challenge without offering a reason earlier this month.
